Johnson: A giving woman keeps on giving

Oct. 21, 2013

Updated 10:54 a.m.

1 of 1

Kelly Wright and her daughter, Maggie, 9, sit in the motel room of Don Kovach after he was taken to a local hospital with respiratory problems. Wright and her family have been trying to help Kovach who she met last year and recently ran into him again at a 99 cent store. The 84-year-old doesn't have much of a support group and is taken advantage of for what little money he has. MICHAEL KITADA, FOR THE REGISTER

Kelly Wright and her daughter, Maggie, 9, sit in the motel room of Don Kovach after he was taken to a local hospital with respiratory problems. Wright and her family have been trying to help Kovach who she met last year and recently ran into him again at a 99 cent store. The 84-year-old doesn't have much of a support group and is taken advantage of for what little money he has. MICHAEL KITADA, FOR THE REGISTER

Question for today: Would you do what Kelly Wright is doing?

OK, it is a trick question. Of course you would not. And if, indeed, you would, well, God bless you.

The story goes back nine months ago when Wright, 44, took her husband, Gerry, to a store in Huntington Beach, came out and saw an old man standing in the middle of the road hunched over, looking confused and standing completely still.

The question wasn’t whether Wright, a veterinarian who runs the Cat Clinic of Orange County in Costa Mesa, would spring into action that day.

She is a woman who, after all, last spring went on Facebook and offered to donate a kidney to anyone who wanted it. A 51-year-old man in Massachusetts, who likely would have soon died of renal failure, immediately took her up on the offer. They both “immediately clicked,” and Wright by late March had saved the man’s life.

That afternoon nine months ago in Huntington Beach, the old man told her when she asked if he was OK that he was simply trying to get to church.

She detected that perhaps the man, who was nicely dressed and said he lived in a condo on the other side of the store, suffered from a bit of dementia. She patted the man on the shoulder, and drove him to church that day.

“He got out, gave me a big hug and thanked me,” Wright said.

She would on occasion see the old man, wonder how he was doing.

“When I first saw him last year,” she recalled the other day, “he looked like the guardian angel in “It’s A Wonderful Life” – yeah, Clarence.

“From then on, I always said he was my guardian angel. You always think God puts people in your path, you know, to teach you a lesson about how to live your life.”

Last Sunday, she and Gerry were in a 99 Cents Only store picking up Halloween décor when they heard yelling coming from an aisle. She walked over, and it was the old man.

“Yeah, yeah,” he told her. “I remember, you gave me a ride to church.”

The last nine months had not been kind to the old man. He was now homeless, she said, and his dementia had worsened.

“I took him around the store to get what he needed, and gave him $10 to pay for it,” Wright recalled. “He was rambling on and on, saying some really inappropriate things, swearing – the man has no filter.”

She and Gerry bid the old man goodbye.

The next day, though, she took Gerry to a restaurant near the store. She wanted to see if she could spot the old man. Soon, there he was, outside the New Harbor Inn in Costa Mesa. She grabbed Gerry, and together they raced over.

Given his room number by the front desk, they knocked on his door.

“Who are you?” the old man barked.

“Do you remember me?” Wright asked.

“Oh, yeah.”

Inside the room, “the smell would have knocked you over,” she recalled. “It was so disgusting.

“On the bed was this woman, a meth addict I’m certain,” Wright continued. “He told me she had nowhere to go.”

The old man’s name, he told her, was Don. Don Kovach. He is 84-years-old.

And at that moment, he was bleeding profusely from the top of his head. She ran him to the sink in the bathroom and stopped the bleeding.

She and Gerry, leaving the meth addict behind, then took him to breakfast.

Yes, he told them, he’d had a hard life. He once was in the scrap metal business, had 17 trucks. He once was married, for 16 years until the day his wife left him. He’d been an alcoholic back then, but hadn’t had a drink for 20 years.

After breakfast, she ran to the store to buy Don some food, and when she returned, paid for a few more days at the motel for him, plus a little more for his meth addict guest.

On Tuesday afternoon, Wright returned. Gerry that morning had brought Don coffee and breakfast from McDonalds, and together they went to the Salvation Army to buy Don five shirts, some underwear, socks, a backpack and a large rolling basket cart in case he needed something to put his belongings in should he have to leave the motel.

Upon their return, the meth addict was still there, but Don had fallen twice. He had no shirt on. Bruises were everywhere. She rushed him in her car to the hospital.

“My inclination was to get him evaluated by a doctor to see if his general health was OK,” she recalled. “I was going to call an ambulance when he started to cry.

“Don’t call an ambulance,” he shouted at her. “People are going to steal my stuff!”

Hi, Don!

Everyone at the Fountain Valley hospital knew Don Kovach. He had been there several times. Wright left him there at 9:30 p.m.

The hospital called her at 11:30 to come pick Don up. Realizing no cab would take a credit card number over the phone, she drove back over to pick him up. Don wanted coffee. She pulled into a 7-Eleven, and got him a cup before dropping him back at the motel.

The next morning, Wright returned. She wanted to gather up Don’s clothes to take to her home to wash. The meth addict was still there.

“She was just there for Don’s $850-a-month disability check. He is just a cash cow to her,” she fumed.

She went to the front desk, paid another week for Don, and left instructions that the meth addict was not allowed to be there.

That is when I met Wright.

“I’ve got to get him somewhere stable,” she told me.

She had launched a “Help Find Don a Home” page at gofundme.com/4sxj00. By Thursday, it had raised $480 of the $2,500 she was seeking.

“I mean I’ve got 500-plus Facebook friends. If everybody in the OC gives up a latte … Do you see what I’m saying?

“It just boggles my mind, thinking of where we live, where just blocks away an 84-year-old man with no family, who every night doesn’t know where he’s going to sleep, can exist. We like to pretend he doesn’t exist. But he could be any of us, our dad, our grandfather, our brother.”

How long can she do it, be the guardian of an old man she barely knows, who over the past week oftentimes forgets who she is? I ask her.

Wright eyes dart, obviously looking for an answer. She just shrugs.

“I’d never regret helping somebody,” she said. “I want to help him be somewhere safe, not just be the person who gives him $20 and disappears.”

On Friday morning, Wright emailed me with an excited message. She had found a senior social worker with Orange County Adult Protective Services who would looked into Don’s case.

“What he really needs is a room where someone could look after him. He needs assisted living,” she told me.

“He’s just an old person who needs help. When the time comes, he needs to die with a pillow under his head, not concrete.”

User Agreement

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial
slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about
tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to
allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to
republish your name and comment in additional Register publications
without any notification or payment.